1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of adjusting the settings of a thermal printer. Specifically, it relates to a method of automatically adjusting the settings for a specific media.
2. Description of Related Art
When a new type or roll of media is installed in a printer, the printer settings need be adjusted in order to obtain the best print quality for that media.
Prior art methods of adjusting printer settings for new media involve either looking up recommended settings for a particular media in tables provided by the manufacturer and manually inputting those settings, manual trial and error of various settings by an operator or a combination of these two methods. The recommended settings listed in a table are an estimate or approximation of the best print settings for a particular type of media, but are not able to take into account individual variations in the media based on, for example, manufacturing conditions, storage, and starting materials. Nor do the recommended settings listed take into account variations due to an individual printer, printerhead wear, ribbon wear, etc.
Prior art solutions based on human interaction and/or judgment may not result in the optimal settings. Further, prior art solutions based on human judgment will not give repeatable results because each operator may have a different view. Thus, there is a need for an automatic method for adjusting the printer settings for a new media.